


Believe

by deadptarmigan



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Crookshanks, F/F, Fluff, Masturbation, Sex, Tea, bookstore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:29:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29247324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadptarmigan/pseuds/deadptarmigan
Summary: Hermione Granger is picking up the pieces of the life she broke. The new owner of a bookstore specializing in rare magical texts, she has enough work to keep her thoughts from straying to the past... but Luna Lovegood has other plans.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Luna Lovegood
Comments: 5
Kudos: 38
Collections: Luna Lovegood Fest 2021





	Believe

“I always thought you’d end up somewhere like this,” said Luna, who was goggling at everything. It was a look she had perfected — large blue eyes skimming from one side to the next, not landing on anything in particular.

_And since when do you drone on about Luna’s eyes in your thoughts?_

Hermione tucked her hands behind her back. “Really?” she asked, more strident than she’d intended to be. “I never imagined I’d leave the Ministry, let alone...” Her words trailed off and she made a gesture expansive enough to contain everything. She swept in the thick green curtains over the shop window, the floors made of elder wood and the shelves made of a grey wood she did not know, the books that were crammed together, over-flowing the shelves, and even her large ginger cat, Crookshanks, and presented them to Luna.

Luna only blinked at her.

“I think you’re the only one who isn’t surprised,” said Hermione. She had seen Harry and Ginny only three times since the break-up, and neither one had gotten over their surprise. There was a laugh bubbling up her chest, but it was not a nice laugh, so she didn’t release it. It was madness that Hermione broke her career and her relationship on the same terrible day. Everyone thought so. It was madness that she use the money from her parents’s estate — carefully exchanged at Gringott’s — to purchase this small, magical bookstore in a forgotten corner of Diagon Alley.

Luna did not seem to think so, but this did not quell the rational side of Hermione, who kept nattering on about how silly she was being. How could it? Her gaze flicked up and down, taking in long, pale hair that tumbled down her back, eyes that were slightly too large, and stubborn chin. Then downward, onto her robes, which were as eccentric as ever. They were fitted quite neatly, but who ever heard of the sort of embroidery magic that allowed sewn figures of fiery creatures to flit across her chest.

It was disquieting that Luna did not think her mad, and even more disquieting that Hermione had known, somehow, that she wouldn’t.

“Let me get you a cup of tea!” Hermione chirped. There was pressure on her chest, enough so that her words came out like a little squeak.

Instead of retreating, Luna followed her through the warren of bookshelves, back to the little area that Hermione had cleared out and added armchairs to. Her gaze was a weight upon Hermione’s back and a prickling on the back of her neck. This was the first time she had seen Luna since the break-up, and it had been four months.

The first month, Hermione had licked her wounds in the privacy of her parents’ old home, the one she could not quite bring herself to sell. It was all chrome and windows; in the middle of a cold winter, it was exactly the sort of numbing place she’d wanted to be. The second month, she’d decided that she was going to pull herself together, made a list of all the things she needed to do, and – one by one – marked them off. _Wash more regularly, check. Figure out a new path of employment, check. Send Ron the ring back, check. Do not cry more than two times daily, check check._ The third month, she’d taken a little stroll about Diagon Alley and found this place. It was fate, she’d decided, upon seeing the For Sale sign in the window. The previous owner had been on the receiving end of one of Rabastan Lestrange’s curses, had spent a year in St. Mungo’s after the war, and had never quite recovered his strength. The bookstore, full of antique spellbooks and sorcerer’s grimoires and alternative histories of magic, was no longer a place of joy for him, but a burden.

When he had seen Hermione’s face, far too recognizable these days, it was all she could do to stop him from giving it to her outright. They’d each signed a magical contract not even two hours after Hermione stepped over the threshold.

She had no regrets.

The tea had steeped while she’d been lost in her thoughts.

“How do you take it?” Hermione asked. As she did, she knew the answer: she’d always seen Luna drink it with just a dash of cream and no sugar, which she’d found odd and slightly fascinating. “Never mind, I remember.”

“And even if you don’t, I would take it how you made it,” said Luna.

Hermione snatched a glance at her and looked away. The back of her neck was prickling again. The tea sloshed over the rim of the cup as she handed it to Luna. It was not the first time that Luna had made such a comment. Their friendship, such as it was, had been sprinkled with any number of stray comments that added friction to Hermione’s thoughts.

“Well, I hope you like it,” Hermione said finally.

“Why did you leave Ron?” Luna asked, settling her unsipped-from cup on her thigh, and leaning forward. “I was beginning to think you really would stay with him forever.” There was a note of censure in her tone, as though Hermione were about to be chided for remaining in a relationship for five years. “So, why did you leave?”

“It wasn’t because of anyone else,” Hermione snapped. When Luna’s eyes widened, she bit her lip. “It… wasn’t,” she added in a gentler tone. It was not precisely true. Hermione had not left Ron for anyone in particular, but more… the possibility of someone. The back of her neck burned. “I just… couldn’t stay in that life anymore. It wasn’t who I wanted to be. I couldn’t be that anymore.”

Luna nodded, as though she understood, though there was no possibility she actually did. The little sewn creature was prancing back and forth across the tops of her breasts, distracting Hermione, almost mesmerizing her. Back at Hogwarts, Luna had been slim… skinny, even. But now there was an additional fullness to her that was rather apparent now.

Hermione scratched at the nape of her neck, where her bundle of hair threatened to break loose from its confines at any moment, and dragged her gaze back up to Luna’s unblinking stare.

“I rather thought you left Ron because of what’s between us,” said Luna.

This jerked Hermione’s wandering thoughts fully back to the present. She spluttered out a few bits of nonsense. “I – don’t believe—”

“That’s your problem, you know,” Luna said, as though she had every right to say such things. “You don’t _believe_. You don’t believe in anything you can’t see with your own two eyes. For a witch, you don’t believe in very much magic at all.”

As Hermione stared on with disbelief, Luna rose from her chair, settling her full tea cup on the top of a pile of books, gave her one last stare, and spun on her heel. The only thing she left behind was a scent of heathery moors and patchouli. To Hermione’s horror, tears sprung up in her eyes when she heard the bell ring; Luna was well and truly out of the store. She mopped at her cheeks and sniffed.

_Well, if Luna wants to leave for no reason whatsoever, that is her right_.

It took several minutes before Hermione realized that not only was the tea not cooling, the steam rising up from it was spiraling into discernible letters. B-E-L-I-E-V-E. The small bit of magic Luna had done – and when, exactly, had she done it? – was another accusation, written in smoke, rising up from the tea cup. _Believe_.

“And how can I believe?” Hermione admonished the cup. “How _can_ I?”

But there was no time to answer; the bell over the door gave another jingle, and Hermione rushed away from the cup, and the magic Luna had used on it, rushing to greet her new customer with a smile and a promise of help. She set it firmly from her mind, though all the rest of the day, she would feel a little pang in her stomach, stand stock still, and think of the steam rising in the spiral, threatening to take Hermione’s hopes with it…

_Believe_.

***

Life as the proprietor of a rare bookstore was so much more peaceful than that of overworked Ministry employee that it was almost laughable. Hermione and Crookshanks settled in to it with both pleasure and ease; Hermione made him a couple of little beds that she settled in different nooks and crannies of the store, and he spent his mornings napping while she worked. There were times, of course, that she missed Ron. How could she not? She had spent most of her years with him, either in a relationship or as a friend. It was odd that she did not have him to talk to in the evenings. But a clean break was better, she knew, remembering the heartbreak in his blue eyes, and wincing that she’d caused it. Despite the guilt, however, it was a different pair of blue eyes – both wider and warmer – that she thought of most.

Whatever charm she had used on the teacup had persisted. In the last couple of weeks, Hermione had taken to using it, just to see the _believe_ rise up out of the steam and waft off across the room. She would have an afternoon cup of tea and do her sorting – organizing a place such as this was a gargantuan task, and not one that could be accomplished in a day, or even a month. The books and grimoires and scrolls were slowly gathering together in clusters based on subject matter, and it had not escaped Hermione’s notice that her heart beat a little faster whenever she found books to do with magical conspiracy theories or fantastical beasts, and she took a little more care with organizing those sections.

On this particular afternoon, weeks since she’d seen Luna, her hand rested on a slim volume entitled _How to Crossbreed Magical Flora with Magical Fauna_ , and something within her snapped.

In moments, Hermione had retrieved her cloak, patted Crookshanks a goodbye and told him to mind the shop in her absence, and walked out the door. Her spirits had lifted, feeling nearly as light as that maddening little _believe_ Luna had caused to haunt her. What Hermione _believed_ she wanted to do next was to contact Luna.

“And not worry about anything else,” she muttered, earning her nervous looks from the passers-by. She ignored them, pressing on to the small owl post tucked in between shops. There was a larger one down the crooked little alley, but Hermione did not often walk too close to Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes.

It was crammed full of owls, and smelled rather redolent, and Hermione jotted down a note to Luna in an untidy scrawl. _It has been long since your last visit_ , said Hermione, _and you never did get a chance to browse through the books. I have set aside quite a collection of magizoology books for your interest._

Heart pounding away in her chest, Hermione tied her note to the leg of a small tawny owl, and watched it wing off into the late afternoon. Shading her eyes and squinting after the disappearing figure, Hermione felt a surprising measure of peace. What was done was done. And what, precisely, had Hermione done that was so terrifying in the first place? She had invited a friend to visit her shop… surely, there were a thousand such people doing precisely the same thing she was. There was nothing terrifying in that.

This thought was a buoyant one, and kept her walking back to the shop with a spring in her step. Back at the shop, she hummed through the rest of her tasks, gave Crookshanks a spoon of tuna, and settled back in the apartment behind the store with a happy, fizzing feeling in her belly.

But, somehow during the night, as she slept, the fizziness metamorphosed into something else entirely. Luna drifted in and out of her dreams in ways that created an ache between Hermione’s thighs and a heaviness at the tips of her breasts. In her dreams, there was no fear, only that little creature embroidered on Luna’s shirt leaping between them, unraveling her top as he did, revealing pale breasts with pale pink nipples topping them.

“Let me show you,” Luna said, “how to _believe_.”

And then Hermione was naked, splayed out—

Her eyes popped open and she sat up with a start. For a moment, she did not recognize this tiny, cramped room that only had space for a bed and a small cabinet with an ewer of water atop it. Guilt mixed with her arousal; how could she _still_ be having sex dreams of women when Ron was _right there—_

Hermione’s heart gave a little flutter and she flopped back on the bed, laughing softly. Ron _wasn’t_ there. There was no one in bed with her at the moment; she was free to have all the dream lovers she wanted. They would hurt no one. There in the quiet of the very early morning, with Crookshanks’s rumbling snores near her pillow, Hermione allowed herself to remember the pleasure of the dream.

Sleepy and still aroused, Hermione admitted that she might have a type. Oh, Luna and Ron were about as different from each other as they could be – that was sort of the point, there were aspects of Luna that Hermione found physically more appealing than Ron – but there was _friction_ between them. Neither one of them had ever had any problem arguing with her, challenging her, and keeping her on her toes. That part of her relationship with Ron had been brilliant, truly… Luna was different, but the heady feeling was even more intense…

_Believe_.

When she was done, Hermione rolled over onto her stomach and buried her face in her pillow, wondering if this was yet another thing that Luna would guess at, as though she could read Hermione’s thoughts. Would she know that Hermione had awoken swollen and aroused for her and had to complete what the dream had begun? It was these thoughts, this anxious little lullaby, that Hermione fell asleep to once more.

The next morning, as she opened the window to see fog blanketing the shops and buildings around Diagon Alley, a thoughtfulness had descended over her, mantling over her shoulders. If she were being perfectly honest with herself – and six months ago, sobbing in the loo at the Ministry, conflicted over her own thoughts, Hermione had decided she was going to be honest with herself from then on, no more lying – this was not the first time Luna had intruded on her sexual thoughts. She waltzed into Hermione’s brain as though it were a house they both shared, and Hermione kept finding her in rooms she considered private and not for just anyone. In the places in her mind that she did not keep tidy, the places she wallowed in when she was sad, Luna was often there as though she’d received an invitation from Hermione a long time ago and Hermione didn’t know how to rescind it.

And Hermione knew exactly when it had happened.

_“You don’t have to be brave, you know.”_

_Hermione snarled, not turning around. The boys were elsewhere – napping, Hermione thought, it had been a big night. After long months of camping everywhere and going nowhere, they had finally been dragged to the last place they wanted to be: Malfoy Manor. A chill went up her spine and all the muscles in her body cramped. Horror welled up within her—_

_“Easy,” Luna murmured._

_Hermione looked at her and jerked her arm out of Luna’s grip. “I don’t want to be touched just now,” she said. It took some effort to say the words. They had clogged in her throat._ Bellatrix is no longer here, _she chided herself._ Look around you. See the evidence of your own eyes. _Obedient to her chiding thoughts, she glanced around the small, bright kitchen at Shell Cottage. An icebox sat on the counter; it was tiny, but Hermione knew that the inside of it had been magically enlarged, the same way she had done her beaded purse… the purse her parents had given her from their last trip to France._

_Her fingertips found the bag and skated over the beads. They were hard and cool to the touch and it didn’t help stop her racing thoughts. Something like panic began to well up inside her, and her gaze caught on Luna’s._ Blue eyes, _she thought,_ like Ron’s eyes. _Except that they were altogether a different hue. She didn’t blink often, Luna, and it made her eyes water just to think of it._

_“I know something that can help,” Luna offered._

_“Nothing helps with the Cruciatus, Luna,” Hermione snapped._

_“This does, believe me,” she insisted. And without asking permission, she took Hermione’s hand pressed her thumb down, hard, on the very center of Hermione’s palm. Again, Hermione tried to jerk out of her grip, but Luna would not allow it._

_“Luna—”_

_“Give me_ one moment, _Hermione,” Luna said, rather more stringently._

_Hermione subsided, not used to that sort of tone from the younger witch, who was now singing a simple sort of melody – it had no words, but it sounded warm and maybe Irish, and Hermione let her arm relax. Luna’s grip gentled as she did._

_It was with great reluctance – great enough that it made her slightly ill – that Hermione realized that_ something _was happening to the little bursts of pain that had been haunting her since Bellatrix had tortured her at Malfoy Manor. Again, tears sprung up in her eyes, as Luna hummed on. Flabbergasted, Hermione stared at her. There was nothing that helped the aftereffects of the Cruciatus Curse. It lessened, of course, with time, but there were_ reasons _why it was Unforgivable. It couldn’t be healed until the pain disappeared on its own, days, weeks, sometimes even months later… What on earth could Luna be doing?_

_“I was tortured too, you know,” said Luna, as though picking up on the thread of a conversation they had not had. Hermione peered at her a little closer. There were dark shadows beneath her eyes, making her paler than normal._ Maybe that’s why her eyes seem so blue _. It was an odd thought, and one Hermione pushed aside as quickly as it formed._

_“I’m sorry,” said Hermione._

_“It helped,” said Luna. “My mum said that it would always help me, even at the darkest of moments. She used to sing it before bed. I was afraid of the dark, you see… she was a talented witch…”_

_“But Luna—”_

_Hermione bit her tongue. Warmth had replaced the pain in her limbs and in her muscles, erasing it almost entirely. The evidence had presented itself, and was found in favor of Luna’s arguments; Hermione could not argue with her own senses, could she? But still, the rug had been slid out from under her feet, and the impossible thing had been done. Luna was humming again, and more little pulses of warmth were spreading through Hermione’s body, soothing the phantom pain._

_“My dad always said that the prettiest roses are the thorniest,” said Luna, amicably._

_Hermione’s lips parted and she once more pulled her arm out of Luna’s grasp. It was an odd thing for her to say; why was Luna always saying such odd things? The air was pulled out of the room, and her cheeks heated. She had not quite found her legs yet; being around Luna was like trying to dance on quicksand._

_“Hermione?”_

_Hermione jerked around to the open door, where Ron now stood, blinking at her. His hair was long and scruffy and he had a patchy beard that she wanted to smooth over with her fingers. His eyes were a pretty blue, though not as bright as Luna’s, and they peered at her with both kindness and worry. She cut a glance at the other girl, then left the kitchen with only a murmur of thanks and a sense of immense gratitude toward Ron for interrupting when he did._

Hermione pushed open the window, breathing in the misty air; it smelled like water and potions ingredients from the shop next door. Her thoughts made her heart race a little, and her cheeks were as hot as they’d been that day in Shell Cottage. The fact she wanted Luna was as baffling to her as the containment of a balm for the Cruciatus Curse within a lullaby sung by Luna’s mother. _But they’re both witches of unusual talents,_ Hermione thought, thinking of the teacup that still emitted steam that swirled into the word _believe_.

Pressing her forehead against the cool glass of the window, Hermione made a wish.

***

Three hours later, three separate bookshelves were emptied of their contents; scrolls took up all three of the old, puffy chairs in her sitting section, and Hermione had run out of energy. Bleary-eyed, she stared at the mess she’d made and wished she hadn’t decided to reorganize the foreign section. It had just _bothered_ her to find Spanish grimoires beside a three volume set of the history of magic in the Russian Orthodox church. Three hours of frantic activity later, and now Hermione was surrounded by a mess, Luna was possibly coming over, and Hermione had no energy left to clean up.

“Damn it,” she muttered.

With a groan, she flicked her wand. A couple of the books thumped to the floor.

“Are all these for me?”

“ _Luna!_ ”

Hermione pressed her hand to her heart, which had leapt quite concerningly into her throat. Her shout was still echoing around the room. “I didn’t hear – when did you – have you been--?”

“I’ve only been here a moment,” said Luna, who had somehow managed to find a true question in her garbled speech. “Are all these for me? I’m not sure I can carry all of them.”

“Oh…” said Hermione, staring around. Where _had_ she put the books she’d set aside for Luna? With a sinking feeling, she realized she’d set them beside one of the chairs… they were covered by now… “I think I might have… buried them?”

Luna blinked at her. “Are you moving the shop?”

“No,” said Hermione, shoulders slumping. “No, I just… I’m trying to get a handle on the organization, but I can’t quite do it. I swear, Luna, the more I organize, the more books I find… I really believe the last owner cast some sort of charm! Either that, or the books and scrolls and such really do breed.”

“What happens, do you think, if a book mates with a scroll?” Luna asked, picking her way around a pile of books that came from the African school for magic, Uagadou. One of them let out a sleepy murmur when she nudged it with her elbow.

“Sorry,” said Hermione. Her hair had come out of its bun, and she blew a brown curl out of her eyes. “They do that.”

“What do you think it would have been like, going to school at Uagadou?” Luna asked.

“I have no idea,” said Hermione. It had not escaped her attention that Luna was making her way closer to her. The fear from the night before, that Luna would somehow read that Hermione had touched herself while thinking of Luna, welled up inside her. Little wings beat in her belly, making her center pulse with remembered pleasure. Luna had done something flirty with her hair; half of it was up, half of it waved over her shoulders and down her back. It was an arrangement Hermione couldn’t manage for herself unless she used copious amounts of Sleekeasy’s.

“You’re staring at me,” Luna observed.

It was excitement and not embarrassment that had Hermione flushing red. Luna had just run her thumb over her bottom lip, plumping it. _Get ahold of yourself_ , Hermione chided. There was no reason for her to be growing soft and wet between her legs, but there it was, distracting her.

“I’m… sorry,” she said, after a minute had passed.

“I don’t mind,” Luna said, cocking her head. “I’m staring at you, too.”

Hermione licked her lips. “Why?” she asked.

Luna took a step closer to her. Hermione gripped the back of the chair. The fluttery feeling in her stomach had trebled and her thighs were shaking. _You shouldn’t have made a wish_ , she thought, rather desperately. It was coming true, she thought, but coming true with the force of an avalanche… with the force of the Hogwarts Express… Luna was so close, suddenly, Hermione could see every detail of her eyes, including the darker ring of blue around the iris. They were not ordinary eyes, and Hermione wondered if that was why Luna saw things so differently…

“When you lick your lips like that,” said Luna, “I want to kiss you. And later, I think about you licking my—”

Hermione clapped a hand over Luna’s mouth. “ _Luna_ ,” she said, desperate, “you can’t just _say_ things like that.”

Luna’s brows lifted. _And why not_? Luna was fearless in what she said, she always had been. A couple of years ago, Ron had been away with Harry on some sort of Auror business, and the loneliness had had Hermione chasing her thoughts down odd paths. Of course, they had lingered on Luna – Luna, who had somehow taken up space in Hermione’s mind without her giving her permission to do so. A part of Hermione had always wondered why she hadn’t been sorted into Ravenclaw, but it took coming to know Luna better to realize why she hadn’t. Luna was not _afraid_ of what she didn’t know, not like Hermione… And here she was, standing in front of Hermione, plainly unafraid to tell Hermione exactly where she wanted her.

“I… haven’t done that before,” said Hermione, flushing.

“I have,” said Luna, voice muffled by the palm of Hermione’s hand, “I can teach you.”

From anyone else, Hermione might have taken offense. Instead, she dropped her arm to her side, leaned forward a couple of inches, and pressed her lips to Luna’s. Tears stung the backs of her eyes at the sweet pressure. Luna tasted of mint and vanilla and something more exotic. Hermione sought after more of that taste, licking at her to open her mouth. Delight seemed to spread through her entire body, the longer the two of them kissed; it was everything Hermione had wished it would be, this, kissing Luna, touching each other like this. This delight made her center pulse with more insistent demands, and her nipples tighten.

“Luna,” Hermione pulled away and dragged in a ragged breath, “I have a bedroom. I can… close the shop…”

_I wish it would just be easy between me and Luna_. The wish Hermione had made hours ago quivered on the verge of coming true.

“Oh yes,” said Luna, smile bright and wide, “Please do.”

In the end, Hermione brought Luna behind the counter and through the door that led to her small living quarters. “It’s tiny,” she said, flushing, though she didn’t know why. The kiss was still heating her blood – had Luna always been able to kiss like that? – and her hand clenched tightly around Luna’s.

“I don’t care,” said Luna, rather dreamily.

“You might,” said Hermione. Her room – and therefore her bed – was awfully small. But she could not bring herself to say this out loud, but sort of grimaced lightly when she ushered Luna through the tiny, postage stamp of a kitchen, and into the bedroom.

“I like it,” Luna said. “It’s pretty. I can see you in here.”

“Of course you can, silly,” Hermione said. Something light was blossoming in her chest. “I’m standing right here.”

Luna looked at her and smiled. “I didn’t mean—”

“I know,” Hermione said in a rush. “I know what you meant, Luna. I… usually do now. I just…” Her shoulders lifted in a helpless shrug. It was the way they’d always related to one another, and those habits were hard to break. “Does it bother you?”

A smile touched her lips, and there was a glimmer of fun in those blue eyes. “No,” said Luna. She stepped toward her, and suddenly their bodies were rather close. “No, I don’t mind. I _like_ being challenged.”

They did not speak much after that. Hermione’s desire to kiss this woman had first sprung up so many years ago, and it had grown since then, despite time and distance and another lover. Hermione squirmed when their tongues touched, lightly, and then withdrew; a part of her was unable to comprehend that Luna was in her arms, kissing her with the sort of skill that made Hermione’s head spin. It was not much longer that she found out that her bed – though small – was not _too_ small.

And Luna’s tongue was rather clever in other places.

Hermione sat up on her elbows, staring down at the blond head bobbing between her thighs. Little whimpers escaped her at every flick of Luna’s tongue, her clit nearly dancing at all the attention it was receiving. When Luna looked up at her, her eyes were a burning sort of blue, a look she’d not seen before, one that made her toes spasm with delight.

“Luna,” she murmured, like a prayer. “Luna, Luna, Luna.”

It was pent up years of yearning that went into that first orgasm.

Luna allowed her to recover, shimmying up the small bed to curl around Hermione. Neither of them said a word; instead, they entwined their fingers and allowed the golden silence to stretch out with them like a third lover.

Still not speaking, Hermione rolled over onto her side. It had been a particularly good orgasm, but now that she had recovered a bit, she did not want Luna to languish, unfulfilled. “You aren’t even fully undressed,” said Hermione, in a whisper. Luna shook her head. In silence, Hermione began to address that, sliding her robes down off her shoulders and then down over her breasts. Of course, Hermione had seen breasts before, none of them in her dorm had been particularly modest. But these were pretty enough they seemed to be glowing in the midmorning light, the tips a rosy gold.

Hermione squirmed until she was at eye level with them, plumping them in her hand; they were smaller than hers, but not by much, and were so sensitive that the nipple hardened as she rubbed her thumb over it.

“I’d quite like it if you licked it,” said Luna.

“Oh, would you?” Hermione murmured. Instead, she blew on it, and was rewarded with a squirm. “Maybe I want to play a bit?”

“Oh, do go on,” said Luna, in her most posh accent, which was clearly meant to mimic Hermione’s own. For a moment, both stared at each other, then dissolved into giggles, the sort that shook the bed and lightened the mood all at once.

Somewhere, in the middle of that, Hermione grabbed her wand off the holster on the headboard and vanished the rest of Luna’s clothes. The laughter died then, to be replaced by a misty sort of feeling. “Ahhh,” said Hermione. Luna was pale and long-limbed, slender and beautiful. Hermione’s gaze caught on the tangle of blond curls between her thighs, breath caught in her throat, and with absolutely no self-consciousness, Luna opened her thighs.

“You don’t have to, of course,” said Luna, “but I do quite like it.”

Hermione wanted to ask who it was Luna had experience with, but decided she did not want Luna’s past lovers in bed with them. There was only room for the two of them, here, now, and Hermione set to kissing Luna, trying to erase the hints of anyone else’s hands…

***

“I made a wish,” said Hermione, much much later. It was afternoon, but she was as groggy as though it were midnight.

“ _You_ made a wish?” Luna asked, warm and amused.

They were under the covers, but both were still naked and coiled around each other. Luna’s fingers were wrapped around Hermione’s breast, toying with it, teasing the nipple.

“You said that for a witch, I don’t believe very much in magic,” said Hermione. It felt like a late night confession, the sort one made in the darkness, not on a golden afternoon. “And it’s true. I believe in hard work and knowledge and learning, but I don’t _like_ when things happen without an explanation.”

“I know,” said Luna, with a little laugh. “You think I don’t know that?”

Hermione rolled over and looked at her. Her hand had a mind of its own, and slid up Luna’s thigh to squeeze her hip. “I know you know that.” She swallowed. “I always spent the most time on things I didn’t understand, trying to understand them. I _hate_ not understanding things. And for a long time, well, I didn’t understand _you_. Until I started _focusing_ on you…”

Luna stretched and made a sound like a happy cat. “I will want you to _focus on me_ again in just a little while.”

Hermione laughed and pinched her waist. “I will,” she promised. “But I want to tell you about my wish!”

Luna opened one eye. “Was it a djinn?” she asked, very serious.

“What – no!” Hermione crowed. “I just… stood at my window and _wished_ that it would just be easy. You know, for us.”

“And you were,” said Luna, “rather easy.”

“I know,” said Hermione. “But I’m not, usually.”

The playfulness was gone. Luna cupped her jaw; Hermione leaned into the soft touch, feeling rather like a happy cat herself. Their bodies pressed even tighter together; nipples met nipples, Hermione’s center was pressed against Luna’s thigh. A thrum of desire went through her.

“I know you aren’t,” Luna told her. “I know you’re a challenge. I’ve always known. It has taken years and years to tame you, but I think I’ve finally done it—”

Hermine pulled back, stung. “I’m not some sort of _creature_ ,” she said. “You can’t just—”

It was Luna’s hand that came up over her mouth now. Hermione subsided. Perhaps it _had_ been a bit like taming, she thought grudgingly. But eventually she laughed against Luna’s warm palm. Luna was perceptive and had a sort of wild intelligence that Hermione could only study – and had done, these last few years, just as earlier she had been studying rather keenly the rhythm of Luna’s pleasure. Warmth blossomed in her chest and it was all she could do to scramble up off the bed, summon her silk robe, and ask Luna if she felt like a bit of tea just now.

There was something huge inside her waiting to break through; it made the backs of her eyes sting, and if she let it loose she’d be throwing herself at Luna’s feet, crying out her feelings. Hermione chanced a glance at Luna… she sat, still and smiling, atop the small table in her kitchen, entirely naked but for a pair of socks. Her heart gave a great thump and the feelings threatened to spill out.

Holding it in took enough time that she was left staring at two cups of properly steeped tea, not quite knowing how it had happened that they were made already. Taking five deep and even breaths, Hermione then murmured a little charm.

“Here,” said Hermione, voice trembling a little. “This one is yours.”

Luna took the cup.

From it, steam wreathed into the air, forming a single word: _love_.


End file.
